Credit first. Tim Ferriss popularized the phrase in a 2007 blog post, The Not-To-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now, arguing that "what you don't do determines what you can do." Jim Collins had made a similar case four years earlier with his "stop doing" list, a New Year's resolution built by subtraction. This worksheet is an independent take on the idea: neither of them made it, reviewed it, or stands behind it.

Why write down what you won't do

A to-do list only ever grows: every good intention adds a line. A not-to-do list works the other side of the ledger: the reflexes that eat the hours you meant for something else. Email before you have done anything that matters. A yes to every meeting that lands on your calendar. The phone in bed that turns ten minutes into an hour.

Ferriss suggested working on one or two at a time, the way you would treat your most important tasks. This pad keeps that spirit: it stops at five lines, and it asks for a mark every day, because a rule you never check on is only a wish.

How this page works

Each line on the pad is a habit you are stopping, crossed out in red the moment you write it. Tap a suggestion and it arrives with its trigger and swap filled in, or write your own. Keep both short:

• When is the moment the habit usually starts: the phone charging on the nightstand, an invite with no agenda.
• Instead is what you do in that moment, or the rule you hold to: the phone charges in the kitchen, no agenda means no yes.

Each evening, mark every line held or broke for the day. Under each line an ink line grows one day at a time, solid where it held and snapped where it broke. On a day a line held, you can note where the freed time went: sleep, reading, focused work, people. Missed an evening? Step back and fill in any earlier day of the run. A run lasts two weeks from your first mark, which gives every weekday two chances to show up; after that, start the next two weeks and your lines carry over with fresh marks.

The reading underneath does the part paper can't. It names the line that breaks most, finds the weekday its breaks gather on, quotes the trigger you wrote for it, and names the line that holds best. The tally of freed time shows what all that not-doing actually bought you.

What the evidence says, and what it doesn't

Nobody has run a trial on not-to-do lists as such, so any promise that one will transform your year is marketing. The research that does exist covers the pieces this pad is built from.

The strongest piece is the if-then plan. Pairing a goal with a specific plan of the form "if this happens, then I will do that" helps people follow through: a meta-analysis of 94 independent tests found a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006). Your when and instead lines are that kind of plan, pointed at a habit you want gone.

How you word the plan matters too. In studies of unhealthy eating habits, plans phrased as "if this happens, then I will not do that" ironically strengthened the habit they targeted, most of all when it was strong, while plans that named a replacement did not backfire (Adriaanse and colleagues, 2011). Those studies were about food, not email, so read them as a good reason to write an instead, not as a guarantee. A bare "don't" leaves the trigger with nowhere to go.

The marks give you evidence about your own weeks instead of a vague feeling. If scrolling in bed breaks on Fridays, the fix is probably not more willpower on Friday night. It is a different Friday: the book on the pillow before you go out, the charger moved to the kitchen before you are tired.

Getting more out of it

Start with two or three lines, not five, and write triggers you can see coming. "When I'm bored" is too loose to plan around; "when I sit on the couch after dinner" gives the instead a place to stand.

Put the swap where the trigger is. If email first thing keeps breaking, the one real task has to be open on the screen before the inbox is, and Eat the Frog helps you choose that task the night before. For a habit with a stubborn obstacle, The WOOP Method walks you through naming the obstacle and planning around it.

Once a replacement sticks, it has become something you do, and a daily habit tracker is the better home for it. Keep the not-to-do list for what you are still stopping.

When to use it

Reach for it when your days are full but the things you care about keep slipping, when you notice the same reflex swallowing the same hour, or at a natural fresh start: a new year, a new job, a new semester. By the end of two weeks you will know which line needs a sharper rule and which one you can stop thinking about.